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Monday, October 20, 2014

Happy 20th anniversary of the English language version of Final Fantasy 6!
— Alexa Ray Corriea (@AlexaRayC) October 20, 2014

I was 8 years old at the time, but I can't for the life of me remember when I actually got the game. I don't remember a lot of things, it turns out. I do, however, remember playing the game quite a bit. To say that Final Fantasy VI is a big part of development as a gamer would be an understatement. It, EarthBound, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Illusion of Gaia combined to form a quintet of RPGs that were and are very important to me to this day.

FF6 struck me with it's story and character, filled with twists and turns, a large cast of interesting characters, and brilliant villains. I loved the characters so much that I used to pretend that I was a member of their team, hanging out with them on board the Blackjack or the Falcon. Part of that was because I was a fairly solitary kid. I didn't have very many friends, nor did I hang out with them very much outside of school. It's not that I was a reject, I just didn't try to make friends or try to hang out with them. I was very happy in my world and in the worlds of the games that I played. I suppose I was also pretty publicly a nerd, and I didn't really know how to talk to people, and I had trouble making eye contact, but I was doing alright by it.

I think part of the reason the characters are so strong is because you meet them in the World of Balance, regain them in the World of Ruin and find out how they react to this disaster, and then dive into their past and history in their optional sidequest. I miss sidequests, I think they're really important to developing the game world's story.

My brother and I both played FF6 a lot, even together. We watched each other play and offered tips. We didn't play too many video games together once we got much older. We drifted apart, he got his own room, we stopped playing as many games together. Eventually he'd start misbehaving, doing drugs, causing trouble, and making family life difficult. Things have gotten better but we're still distant and I still reminisce about those old days when we'd play together.

I played Final Fantasy VI over and over all the way up and through junior high, periodically dipping back into the game for nostalgia trips when I felt I needed them. I moved on to other things in high school, when we got a PlayStation 2 and FF9, FFX, and Kingdom Hearts were the RPGs that I played. When art went off to college and wanted to take the SNES with him, I obliged. When he dropped out after a semester and moved back home. A lot of the SNES games didn't come back, particularly the RPGs that I loved, that we had bonded over. When I questioned him about where they had gone, he said that he had loaned them to people and hadn't got them back. I pressed him about getting them back, but he always pushed it off. I not think that he probably sold them. I can only imagine what he did with the money. I've never really talked with him about this. We don't ever talk about that time in our family's life.

I almost always played with Sabin and Edgar in my party. I don't know if it's because they're strong or because I just wanted to see brothers that were distant yet loved each other.

I started playing piano in 5th grade and my former kindergarten teacher was my first instructor. I took lessons all the way through high school. For a brief period I took lessons from a jazz piano instructor. Once while there for a lesson I saw a book of piano music that belonged to one of her students. It was a collection of sheet music for FF6's soundtrack. I asked begged her to ask her student where he got the music and when she found out and told me, I ordered a copy immediately. Once I started college I didn't do a good job of staying in practice. Pretty much the only music I would keep playing was music from my FF6 collection and a collection of songs from across all the Final Fantasy games.

The music of FF6 is very deeply ingrained in me. Sometimes I feel that the way that I can best express emotion is by playing its music on the piano. I've purchased it's soundtrack in various forms and arrangements time and time again. It takes me back in time, helps me remember, reminds me of friends I haven't spoken to in a long time. It takes me back to when I was playing the game growing up. FF6 is so important to me. It's hard to say that my life would be different had it never existed, but as it stands I find it hard to imagine it'd be the same.